It never seems like a fun thing when we are hit with trials. Sometimes we are to push back and put the devil in his place and others we are to fold into who God is making us into.

Sometimes we don’t handle trials well, sometimes we think that life can be just too hard. But it is important to know that when the storms of life start up, it is for a purpose.

Sometimes, it’s to strip you of pride and get you to understand it’s really not about you. A lot of the time it’s to grow your faith and show you areas where you need to trust the Lord. No matter what you can be sure, it’s to make you look more like Jesus.

I am going to give you four steps to help you when you are going through your trial, hope you enjoy these steps and the audio above.

4 Steps To Help You Get Through Your Trial

I want to point your attention to Psalms 37:1-7

Step #1

In Vs. 3 we find Trust – You’ll notice it says to trust in the Lord. Trust in this verse means to: “Trust, have confidence, feel secure and bold”

It’s one thing to say that you believe in Jesus, but it’s another to have complete trust in Who He is and have an unwavering confidence that His Word is true.

When trials come our way, it is the perfect opportunity to grow our faith and show us areas in our life where we may lack pure trust.

Step #2

In Vs. 4 we find that we are to delight ourselves in the Lord. When I first read that I had to stop and think about what that looks like. Think about it, what does delighting yourself in the Lord look like in your own life?

Delight means to: “Take joy and enjoy”.

It’s one thing to enjoy doing something, but it’s another when you live in a place where you take joy in the Lord in all things. When we delight ourselves in the Lord, it takes the focus off of us and on to the Lord… Where it should be!

We also know from James 1 that we are to take trials and temptations with Joy. That isn’t always easy, but we must come to an understanding when we are going through the fire, we are being purified and we come out reflecting the glory of God.

You will never be able to truly delight yourself in the Lord if you haven’t put your complete trust in Him.

Step #3

We find in Vs. 5 that we are to commit our ways to God. To commit your ways means that you give it to God and you take and keep your hands off it. So often we give something to the Lord and we take it right back because we do not truly trust Him with our situation.

When we commit our situations, trials, family and life to God, we are acknowledging that we trust Him and we are delighted knowing that He is truly in control.

Step #4

Lastly we find in Vs. 7 to rest in the Lord.

Sometimes when we are going through hard times, rest is not something that we can do easily. Many find themselves too stressed out and worried to rest. But this rest is in the Lord and it means to:
“be silent, to tarry, to wait and be still”

This is something that seems to be almost impossible when we are faced with trouble unless, we have put our trust in the Lord and committed our ways to Him.

It’s a beautiful thing when all hell can break loose and we are not moved, we even have complete peace and rest.
This also means we are to shut out all the distractions and things that would try to get us to waver in our trust. Let’s face it, there will always be something that will try to grab our attention and get it off of Jesus.

So next time you find yourself in the middle of a storm, examine yourself and see if your life is lining up with these four points.

Keep moving forward!

You can tell a lot about a person and the condition of their heart by the words they speak. I hate the fact that I have to write about this, this should be kinda a common sense thing for most mature Christians, but yet I see it plauging the Body of Christ.

You may think I am judgemental for what I am about to say, but I will back up everything with the Word of God…

If you wear the Name of Christ and walk this earth as a blood bought child of the Living God, you are His personal representitive, His ambassador. (2 Corinthians 5:20)

We are to represent Him in all areas of life, including the words we speak. I am sick and tired of hearing Christians cuss and talk perveted and think it’s okay! It’s NOT okay! You are a redeemed child of God, not a heathen!

It is NOT okay to be talking dirty or telling perverse jokes to your friends or co-workers.  It’s NOT okay to be cussing!

(Eph. 5:4 Amp.)

“Let there be no filthiness (obscenity, indecency) nor foolish and sinful (silly and corrupt) talk, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting or becoming; but instead voice your thankfulness [to God].”
We are representing God when we speak and when we talk like the heathen, how are we shinning light unto the world?

(Eph. 4:22, 29)

“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.”

“Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace (God’s favor) to those who hear it.”

It’s just simply not okay and by the verses listed above that should be more than enough proof. But let’s talk about what the root of the problem is. If you have a hard time controling your tougn, it really comes down to an issue of the heart. (Matt. 12:34)

“O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”

So if cussing is a problem you have to look at your heart. A lot of it comes down to what you are allowing in…

Are you watching movies full of cussing and perverse talk? I just recently had a talk with a group of kids that lead worship for a local youth group… They were on their way to see a “no so good” movie and they knew it. Well, I had to say something. (I’ll spare you the conversation)  After talking with them I looked up the movie and one of the first things I found about the movie was it had over 165 “f” words! Hello! What are you allowing in you?

You can’t be watching, reading or listening to crap and think it wont effect you. It will!

We are called to be seperated from the world, we are supposed to act different than the rest of the world. Because if we are acting just like them, what would they see that they would want? You’re just like them…

Let’s make it a point to represent the Lord the way He deserves. The world doesn’t need to see a bunch of compromising cussing Christians. They are just waiting to see the real deal, the ones the walk in true power and purity of the King of kings and the Lord of lords!

Make what the Lord did at the Cross count in your life.

May I also add, you do have the right to tell others around you that they need to knock it off if they start cussing around you. Christ is in you, you should protect that.

Keep moving forward.

I remember back when I first got serious in my relationship with God, I was a Spiritual Warfare Freak! I had enough spiritual warfare books that if you stacked them on top of each other it probably would have come out to about 6 feet tall! Well, to make a long story short, I was very unbalanced in my walk. I was extremely “demon conscience” and not very Jesus minded. That alone can lead down a very dangerous road and unfortunately many are going down a road of darkness thinking they are doing warfare.

Who knows where I would be if I continued down a road of doing “spiritual warfare” that man made up instead of the warfare the Bible talks about. I must thank my friend Sandi Querin for the for sitting me down years ago and explaining how I should look to the Word of God to learn Spiritual Warfare and not books man has come up with. That advice saved me from a lot of crap! So thank you Sandi!

Some may say that the Bible does not give enough info on Spiritual Warefare and that we need books on the topic. But I would have to disagree, if you dig into the Word of God you will find everything you need. Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you and lead you into all Truth… He is good at that!

I would like to share something that I believe is very relevant to the topic. I can’t say I read a lot of books, I truly don’t have time. So When I am reading, it’s the Bible. There is however a book that I try to go through a couple times a year, that book is “The Conquest Of Canaan” by Jessie Penn-Lewis. I want to share just a little chunk of something that is talked about in this book…

“It is the only safe in this spiritual warfare to have a present tense faith in a present tense application of the Cross.

You may have yielded to the Cross up to the point of all that you knew last week, but there may be a hidden point in your character which the devil knows about and which you do not; and he is quietly fanning it up while you are off guard, thinking you are so “crucified” that he will never be able again to trap you. This is why souls are sometimes deceived and overthrown in the very spot in which they thing they are the strongest. They are off guard, thinking themselves so safe.

The wily foe can wait twenty years, until he senses that you have forgotten all about something in your character – something which God dealt with so deeply that you thought you would never have to face the matter again. But now, twenty years afterwords, it is attached by the enemy without your suspecting, and the occasion comes which causes you to discover that the devil is quietly aiming at the old place of weakness, and you have to vigorously say, “NO! The matter has been settled and must never be debated again!”  Therefore you see it is one thing to say by faith that you have died to sin, and it is another thing to let God make it fact. When there comes the actual severance, then you know the knife. Keep this before you as you go forward into this battlefield. Pray the Lord to keep the knife of the Cross applied to every part of your being, your cleverness of intellect, your self-confidence, your sympathies, your affections. Let the knife be used by God all the time, not yesterday, but today. This means keeping the material which the enemy can fasten upon out of his way. The place of victory can only be know as the knife of the Cross is kept continually applied to the old creation day by day.”

This is so very true and rings loud in my heart. So many have gotten off course in their life because they don’t have a present tense faith in a present tense knowing and application of the Cross. So they end up chasing battles that they were never meant to fight, they get blinded by pride and self-centeredness and make their faith about them being a “prayer warrior” instead of Jesus.

I remember back when I had a conversation with a guy I know who used to be awesome. He used to only be concerned with what the Lord wanted Him to do and then he would do it. Now he is a pot smoking drunk. I remember sitting there while he was telling me all the things he liked doing now, but how he still liked giving the devil a black eye. I remember sitting there and getting an image in my mind of him looking like a puppet while the devil was above him looking down being the puppet master. This guy really did think he would live in sin and be perfectly fine fighting against the devil. The enemy had this guy in such a delusion, it was very sad to see.

So as you are going out contending for the faith and giving the devil a black eye while you do it, make sure you have a present tense application of the Cross in your life.

Keep moving forward!

It always seems to happen when you least expect it. You don’t even know how you got to where you are. All you know is that if you knew how the turn out was going to be, you would have done things differently.

About six months ago, I had a conversation with a girl who was a worship leader in her youth group. She had told me she was waiting for some friends and how they were going to go to a old boy’s home. Over the years I had heard bad things had gone on there and now people were saying the place was haunted. Knowing this, I asked her “why on earth she was going to go?” From what I remember, she said “it was going to be fun”. I remember seeing her the next day and asked how things went? She told me it was extremely freaky and how something was there and how she had seen blood on the mirrors and how something flew by and knocked her driver’s side door mirror off.

Today, she is not a worship leader and can be found hanging with all the potheads. She doesn’t want to hear the Truth and is completely unhappy with her life…and it shows.

How does someone find themselves in such a bad place? Just like the song “It’s a slow fade” by Casting Crowns. It’s so very true…

I’m not saying it’s because she went to a demonic infested place out of sheer stupidity, now she is where she is. What I am saying is, it happens in baby steps and if she had been in a place where she saw how stupid it was to go there, she would probably not be where she is now. That’s how it happens slowly getting desensitized by influences around you. When you start giving the enemy ground in your life, he is happy to take it and continue to take more and more. Just like the song says, “people don’t crumble in a day”. It’s true, you think watching those movies with all that crap in it doesn’t effect you? It does! And if Christ is in you, then you should have a real problem with it!

I have had multiple conversations this week about a movie that just came out that I want to see. I have asked many Christians that have seen it, if there is anything bad in it. First couple said “no”, some others said there was some language in it and that the Lord’s Name was taken in vain once. That’s NOT nothing! Since when is it ok for the Lord’s Holy Name to be taken and run through the mud!? It’s a slow fade…

I encourage you to spend some time before the Lord and ask Him to reveal anything that might seem okay, but offends Him.

Keep moving forward in Him.

In life we can find ourselves in many different situations, some good and some bad. It’s a horrible thing to suddenly find yourself in a place that seems to be void of God, you feel numb or even dead…

The worst part is, you don’t even know how you got there. This is when situations and people can dictate who we are and how we feel about ourselves, which then dictates how we think, act and live. What a terrible thing.

But, there is great news! In Phil. 3:8-10 says:
“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”

Paul seems to sum it all up for us…

What a beautiful picture that is painted, “to be found in Him” and to “know Him”. When you are found in Him, your current situation doesn’t control you anymore! When you are found in Jesus, you aren’t controlled by people’s words and actions because you know who you are in Him and who He is in you.

So let’s break these verses down…

Paul says, he counts all things a loss for the “Excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus”. I’m thinking this is a big deal, to count ALL things loss, all things is a LOT of things! Paul had some insight here, all things are as dung compared to the Excellency of the knowledge of Christ. This knowledge is not a knowledge you get by reading a text book or going to school, this knowledge comes from spending time with Him and Him alone. It comes spending time with Him and getting to know Him. You know what He likes and how He feels. When you spend this kind of time with the Lord, something changes inside of you, His word is sealed upon your heart where you know that you know that you are found in Him…. And there is no better place to be found!

Now let me say, there are many that seem to think Paul is cussing when he uses the word dung. Now I realize what the Greek says, but I will argue that Paul was NOT cussing, if he had, he would have contradicted all the things he said in all his letters about the words that come out of our mouths. So if you find enjoyment in thinking Paul cussed, you better check your heart because there is nothing funny about it. And don’t be using that as an excuse to say whatever you want either!

When you are found in Him, there is nothing in you that would want to cuss either. As you continue to abide in Him, He shares His heart with you and you feel what He feels.

Now Paul also mentions something else that is key. “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”

Once again this “know Him” is an intimate knowing. But now, it’s also about knowing the power of His resurrection through sharing in His death and living a crucified life. As you do, you are transformed into His image in all areas. As you are dead to yourself and the world, you walk in the power of His resurrection. In newness of live with power and authority. It’s a beautiful thing!

When you combined all of the above to your own life, you don’t have to worry about what people are saying or thinking about you. You don’t have to conform to the situations around you. All you have to do if keep standing firm in the confidence that you are found in Him, worshiping Him every step of the way.

Sure, there is more we could talk about, but let’s make it a point to live a life that is completely hid and found in God!

Until next time, God bless!